Method for modeling components of an information processing application using semantic graph transformations

Abstract

A method for modeling a component of an information processing application, includes: defining an applicability condition of a component, wherein the applicability conditions includes variables representing objects that must be included in a pre-inclusion state and a graph pattern that semantically describes the objects that must be included in the pre-inclusion state, wherein the pre-inclusion state is a state against which the applicability of the component for inclusion in a processing graph is evaluated; and defining an inclusion effect of the component, wherein the inclusion effect includes variables representing objects that must be included in a post-inclusion state and a graph pattern that semantically describes the objects that must be in the post-inclusion state, wherein the post-inclusion state is a state resulting from inclusion of the component in the processing graph.

Description

GOVERNMENT INTERESTS[0001]This invention was made with Government support under Contract No.: H98230-05-3-0001 awarded by the U.S. Department of Defense. The Government has certain rights in this invention.RELATED APPLICATIONS[0002]This application is related to: commonly assigned U.S. application entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ASSEMBLING INFORMATION PROCESSING APPLICATIONS BASED ON DECLARATIVE SEMANTIC SPECIFICATIONS”, application Ser. No. 11 / 695,238, filed concurrently herewith and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety; commonly assigned U.S. application entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATICALLY ASSEMBLING STREAM PROCESSING GRAPHS IN STREAM PROCESSING SYSTEMS”, application Ser. No. 11 / 695,487, filed concurrently herewith and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety; commonly assigned U.S. application entitled “METHOD FOR SEMANTIC MODELING OF STREAM PROCESSING COMPONENTS TO ENABLE AUTOMATIC APPLICATION COMPOSITION”, application Ser. No. 11 / 695,457, filed con...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a method and system for modeling components of an information processing application. The method involves defining an applicability condition for a component, which includes variables representing objects that must be included in a pre-inclusion state and a graph pattern that describes the objects. The system includes a memory device and a processor operative with the program to model a component by applying an applicability condition to a processing graph. The processing graph includes a pre-inclusion state that matches the applicability condition of the component. The method and system allow for the efficient modeling of components of an information processing application and the assembly of a processing graph that satisfies a desired processing outcome.

Problems solved by technology

A challenge arises in understanding the processing request, understanding the components that might achieve the desired outcome, and knowing how to build and / or assemble the components to achieve the processing outcome and fulfill the request.

Expressing desired processing outcomes directly as computer programs coded using general-purpose languages such as C++ or Java generally requires long development cycles and imposes high maintenance costs for any new type or variant of information processing outcome.

However, these query-oriented approaches do not offer sufficient coverage for a wide variety of requests involving non-query goals or requests for outcomes involving operations on unstructured data (e.g., speech-to-text and image recognition operations), nor are they resilient in the face of modifications to underlying conceptual schemas.

Both of the programming approaches and the query approaches suffer from an absence of an explicitly declared intent.

Thus, any adjustments to either the requested outcome or the underlying conceptual schemas can become challenging and costly, often requiring developers to “reverse engineer” existing applications in an attempt to harvest the original intent in order to adapt to the modifications.

Further, in such approaches, the requester of the processing outcome must generally know some potentially large amount of detail as to the means of fulfilling the request.

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